Some action on the case at last, even as the Government stands indicted of bungling which led to the serious breach of security.

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M. RAHMAN

January 31, 1996

ISSUE DATE: January 31, 1996

UPDATED: May 27, 2013 11:06 IST

The arms-drop accused being brought to Purulia

More than three weeks after the roar of a low-flying AN-26 transport plane shattered the calm in West Bengal's Purulia district, the probe into the audacious para-dropping of arms appears to be finally picking up steam.

Last fortnight, the CBI not only put out an alert for two Indian associates of the gun-runners, but also picked up vital clues on the missing gang leader going by the name of Kim Paulgrave Davy.

In New Delhi, simultaneous raids on January 10 targeted at least 10 suspects. Those on a garment exporter's Palika Bazar shop and Daryaganj office, for instance, revealed that he had recently received $29,000 through a Hong Kong bank from Davy who, it is now clear, was linked to a smuggling network in India.

And when CBI officials broke into the home of a missing suspect in the Vasant Vihar Central Government Housing complex, they found a telescope and human skulls besides several airline tickets and two passports. Neighbours said he had left for Purulia three weeks ago.

Human skulls, of course, are used in tantric rituals by the secretive Ananda Marg sect headquartered in Purulia. After the swift release of the 11 Margis arrested by the West Bengal Police following the arms drop on December 17, the CBI conducted raids last fortnight on Marg establishments in Purulia, Asansol, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Giridih and Salem.

The agency also released photographs of two wanted men - Satyanarayana Gowda alias Randhir alias Randy and Daya Manikam Anand alias Dipak.

Wanted

Satyanarayana Gowda: Alias Randhir, alias Randy. He was supposed to receive the arms cache, according to Bleach.

Daya Manikam Anand: Alias Dipak. He is believed to have been on the AN-26 plane that dropped the arms in Purulia.

The names and descriptions of both had been given by British arms-dealer Peter Bleach, who was apprehended along with the six-member Latvian crew when the AN-26 was forced to land at Bombay airport on December 22 on its return flight to Karachi from Phuket.

Bleach had identified Dipak, who has a Singapore passport, as the eighth person on the plane during its flight across the subcontinent on December 17, touching Karachi, Varanasi and Calcutta. Randy, he revealed, was in charge of picking up the cache.

Even as the CBI examined possible Marg links of Randy and Dipak, a sect spokesman described Randy as a "fictitious character" created by the agency.

However, in Bangalore, where Gowda is said to have been an active Margi, local sect spokesman Acharya Gynanananda Avadhut told the CBI that the photograph could be of another member called Suranjan who last visited the Bangalore ashram some five years ago.

But the Bangalore Police believe that the passport Gowda is said to have carried - which gives the place and date of issue as Bangalore, June 29, 1994 - is forged. "We have verified our 1991 records and have found no mention of him," Police Commissioner T. Srinivasalu said.

Nevertheless, the CBI appeared to be on some what firmer ground in its search for Randy and Dipak than the West Bengal Police, which had also arrested Calcutta exporter Rup Dipak Mullick last month on suspicion of links with Davy. He was later discharged by a magistrate. Asks a hapless Mullick: "Who is going to be penalised for the social stigma I've suffered?"

Back in Purulia, the CBI stumbled onto another intriguing suspect in a drama already peopled by colourful characters like Davy and Bleach. Johannes Franz Stein, a middle-aged German, was flown for interrogation to Calcutta in a helicopter after a check of his passport showed he had been to Sri Lanka. Stein claimed he was looking for a SriLankan Tamil girl he had fallen in love with in Trincomalee.

In what was still a list of surmises guiding investigators, the LTTE emerged on top as the possible intended recipient of the weapons cache discovered near the Marg headquarters. Purulia may be a long way from Jaffna, but anti-insurgency experts pointed out that the LTTE is the region's only armed group known to be using the type of weapons found in the crates.

A high-level tip-off from the British Government about the AN-26 arms drop amazingly received low priority in New Delhi.

For besides AK-56 rifles and 9mm pistols, there were rocket launchers and anti-tank grenades, while more crates containing anti-air craft weapons are suspected to have been dropped over Bangladesh.

According to intelligence sources in Madras, if the arms were meant for the Tigers, there could have been two possible routes from Purulia to Point Pedro - the LTTE port in northern Sri Lanka.

The safer one is through Bangladesh to a small, unidentified port in Myanmar which the LTTE has been using as a transit point for arms consignments. These have come till now from the underground arms bazars of Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. The other route, through Chandipur on the Orissa coast, was reportedly used by the LTTE when it was facing the IPKF, but is not the preferred one now.

Was any organisation or mercenary group acting as the conduit for arms to the LTTE from Purulia? Were the Tigers really so desperate for weapons that they chose this circuitous route? Was Purulia the only drop-off point or were there others? Was Davy also involved in drug smuggling? Who is Davy ?

As the questions piled up, only some of the answers were available. The New Zealand Government revealed that Davy had faked his identity while acquiring his Kiwi passport, using the name of a child who died 33 years ago - a fraud straight out of the pages of the Frederick Forsyth thriller The Day of the Jackal.

Investigations by the Eastern Express daily in Hong Kong showed that Davy's Carol Airlines was not registered there. Moreover, neither Davy nor two other men registered as living at Pearl City Mansions on Paterson Street in Hong Kong were to be found in the flat.

Instead, a man "with a North American accent" came to the flat around January 5 to meet a "business associate" he identified as Bernard Mankowitz. "He wouldn't give his own name and was quite hostile," said the daily's Tom Iggulden. The phone at the flat had been registered in Davy's name, but was recently disconnected for non-payment of bills.

Investigations in Varanasi showed that Davy's plane had landed there once earlier on November 23, with the eight-member group staying for four days in a hotel owned by a Samajwadi Party leader.

Davy is suspected to have met local kingpins from the drug trade, made several international calls, paid his bills through credit cards issued in Australia and possibly even driven to Nepal. Following his mysterious escape from Bombay airport after the forced landing, he is suspected to have again crossed into Nepal.

Peter Bleach, who tipped off British authorities, in custody in Calcutta

But the embarrassment over Davy's escape was nothing compared to the ignominy faced when visiting British Home Secretary Michael Howard told the press in New Delhi that the British Government had warned Indian authorities about the arms drop.

As it turned out, Bleach - an accomplished arms dealer - had informed a contact in the British Defence Ministry's Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) about Davy's plan to drop the arms "somewhere near Calcutta".

During his interrogation by the CBI, Bleach reportedly maintained that after the DESO contact advised him against the arms drop, he tried to pull out but Davy threatened him saying, "You have seen too many places and you've seen too many faces." Among these were two Danish dealers who arranged for the arms.

West Bengal IGP, CID, K.J. Singh describes Bleach as "a smart arms dealer", suggesting that the Britisher who once served with the elite 14th Intelligence Company in Rhodesia and Northern Ireland knew how to look after his own interests. Bleach now hopes he'll be treated as an approver so as to escape the rap.

RAW, India's external security agency, had informed the Union Home Ministry about the arms drop at least two weeks before it occurred, specifically mentioning that an AN-26 aircraft would be used. But incredibly, this top-level tip-off from the British Government was given very low priority by the home ministry mandarins.

The West Bengal and Bihar governments were informed by registered letters which reached Calcutta on December 27 and Patna a little earlier.

Says Bihar's Home Commissioner D.P. Maheshwari: "The Home Ministry letter dated December 12 was sent through normal dak and reached us on December 19, after the dropping of arms." Adds West Bengal Chief Secretary N. Krishnamurthy: "We're totally puzzled by what happened."

Davy has been linked to the smuggling of both arms and drugs.

The events following the foolhardy return of the AN-26 to India on December 22 were equally surprising. Despite the fact that the British tip-off mentioned the aircraft type, no red alert had been issued for the plane even after the arms drop.

Contrary to earlier reports, sources in Madras revealed that not just the city airport authorities but even the IAF's Movement Liaison Unit tracking the skies had cleared Davy's plane. It was only after it took off from Madras that the IB alert was sounded and the plane ordered to land in Bombay. But as the final blow, the ringleader was allowed to escape.

As the CBI investigation progresses, more skeletons are likely to tumble out of official cupboards. How much the Government finally reveals is open to conjecture.

But as the BJP promises to make national security its main plank in the coming elections, there is little doubt that the flight of the AN-26 across the Indian skies has exposed the Congress(I) Government in New Delhi to ridicule and worse.